Abstract:

The following paper traces the development of the technological climate in the Federal Republic from the fifties to the threshold of the nineties with a view to social-philosophical and social-political factors. Not only will we be looking at the degree to which the two positions, for and against technology, have shifted but we will also examine the change in acceptance of concrete technologies, for example, computers. The availability of comparative data from major European nations facilitate an interpretation of the German data. Trend studies conducted by the Allensbach Institute indicate further whether the development of the general technology climate and the acceptance of specific high-tech products is having a greater or lesser effect on consumer behavior in the early nineties.